


you fight to survive ('cause you've made it this far)

by Chill_with_Penguins



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: (but not right away), 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Nogitsune (Teen Wolf), Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic Stiles Stilinski, Attempt at Humor, BAMF Stiles, But he's not evil, Canon-Typical Violence, College Student Stiles Stilinski, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Good Parent Sheriff Stilinski, Healthy Derek Hale, Healthy Pack Dynamics, I don't think this really earns the graphic violence tag but I'd rather be safe than sorry, I'm Bad At Tagging, Not Beta Read, Pack Family, SET DURING HIGH SCHOOL, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Spark Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski is a Little Shit, Swearing, Tropes, Warning: Gerard Argent, a lil Scott Bashing at the beginning, alan deaton is a cryptic fuck, as in this is a 5+1 made up of other Stiles!tropes, because I am weak and I needed to try writing them myself, but also post-show while he's in college, but he gets better quickly and it's just an internal rant, but he's also hella powerful and smart, does that make this a college au?, fuck it I'm using the tag, he's being a creepy fucker as usual, kind of, lots and lots of swearing, no beta we die like men, starts as canon-compliant, then veers wildly off course, these chapter lengths vary WILDLY and i am so sorry, they really are swearwolves, this story picks up with the season two finale, whew that was too many tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28351614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chill_with_Penguins/pseuds/Chill_with_Penguins
Summary: "Hello!" he crows, slamming his way into the vet's office with his foot, since his hands are already full of half a dozen crumbling books. "You, good sir, are going to tell me exactly what a Spark is and what the hell they can do, because if this is some Harry Potter shit I've already got the robes."---Stiles really didn't mean for all this to happen, promise. Scout's honor. It's just that one thing spiraled into another and before he knew it he was off at college, with long-distance shared custody of a mystical baby tree and a whole other life he could never quite bring himself to explain.(or: my completely unnecessary attempt at writing a brief 5+1 filled with "Stiles keeps a secret from the pack" subtropes kind of spiraled. I was not expecting an almost 16K monstrosity to come out of this. Sadly, I think I was the only one not expecting that.)
Relationships: Allison Argent & Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin & Stiles Stilinski, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski, Sheriff Stilinski & Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski & Everyone, Stiles Stilinski & The Pack
Comments: 21
Kudos: 226





	1. i. hurt

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, guys! Look, I'm here again!!! With more Teen Wolf!!!! (because god knows the internet needs even more of that)
> 
> Okay, a few quick items of business:
> 
> 1\. This is already complete!! I've written all of it, I'm just uploading it one chapter a week because my next semester is starting soon and I'm a perfectionist without a beta reader, which means that I spend hours editing and still miss most of the typos. 
> 
> 2\. Title is from Owl City's "This Isn't The End", a song that has been successfully making me cry since I started listening to it in 2012. It's upsetting and beautiful and upsettingly beautiful, which is how I like most of my entertainment, as evidenced by the amount of times I've seen the Buffy season two finale. 
> 
> 3\. The whole fic is finished, but as mentioned in the tags, the chapter lengths are extremely varied. Like, chapter two is 4.6K and chapter 4 is a little under a thousand words. I really do apologize; my characters are all little shits who like to monologue when they shouldn't but won't when they should. 
> 
> 4\. I don't know how many of you are people who also read my most recent Loki fic but I just have to say at least once: w o w. like. guys. what the hell. you're all beautiful and perfect and I love you so much. I've actually cried literal tears because you left me such nice comments and I know that I haven't responded which I'm sorry for!! because you deserve a response!! But there's been ~a lot~ happening with personal stuff/family stress in the last month or so and I've been more or less hiding from the world, which is why I haven't really been responding or anything. Still, for the record: I read all of your comments and I really loved them, they made my life infinitely better in these past few weeks. 
> 
> Aaaand I think that's it! Please enjoy and as always, feel more than welcome to come scream with me in the comments about this show/these characters/other fic recommendations you have, because I'm always looking for more.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Gerard being Gerard, the season two finale but *ahem* amped up a bit, mentions of torture (which earned this fic is Graphic Depictions of Violence tag, although I don't actually think it's that graphic), and Stiles' brain rambles, which are dangerous and difficult terrain to wade through ;)
> 
> Take care of yourselves and let's toast to the end of goddamn 2020 <3

The basement is dark, which isn't all that weird, considering, you know, it's night and there aren't any windows to start with and why would they install lights if they were trying to create a dungeon aesthetic anyway, that'd be really stupid. And wouldn't they have needed to hire someone to come down here, like, to install the lights and electrical wires and stuff? Because he's pretty sure he remembers the basement being modified and not designed for anything other than storage, and he can just picture that conversation, like some repair guy--is it a repair guy who does that? Like a plumber, but for, like, lights? An electrician, probably, but he doesn't really know what they do, besides having a job that sounds like a really cool supervillain name, he should definitely google this--coming down to install lights and making awkward conversation with the Argents' grunting goons, complimenting the place and recommending some good throw pillows.

It's possible that he forgot to take his Adderall. 

It's also possible that he has bigger issues--namely, the two unconscious teens, sprawled on the cold concrete a few feet away. He wishes he could get closer, or at least, you know, telepathically wake them up and make some sort of plan. That seems like the kind of thing he should be able to do, right? He should be the comic-relief sidekick who gets superpowers at the last minute and saves the day unexpectedly.

Or maybe not so unexpectedly, considering everything that's been happening. Argents and the kanima and Jackson, because fuck it, Jackson is his own shitload of problems even without the kanima, and Scott, his head so far up his ass that he's blocked out everything but Allison.

(Allison, who's been wearing dark clothing and making threats and walking like broken glass. Allison, who shot at his friends. Allison, who he knows is here because he saw her, he heard her voice and called her name and watched her walk away while they tossed him down here and--)

But it doesn't matter. It doesn't, because Scott knows his scent, Scott has been his best friend since they tried to use the same hiding spot on the playground to escape some bullies and wound up in the principal's office, and  _ Scott will come for him _ . His gaze drops over to Boyd and Erica, to the battery that still crackles with electricity and the wires that are wrapped around them. His arms hurt, because he's been hanging here by his wrists with his feet just barely touching the ground for at least an hour. There are guards at the top of the stairs and two unconscious werewolves and he's been hanging here, pain like a starburst across his vision, for at least an hour and that means Scott must be close. Any second now, he'll kick down those doors.

Except: he doesn't. There's no Scott, just the steady crackle-hum of the battery and his own heartbeat, too hard and frantic to be comfortable. He looks around once, then a second time, then a third 'cause he's pretty bored, and he needs something other than the throbbing in his cheek to focus on. He starts cataloging the room, making a mental inventory of everything in here--the battery and the chains he's dangling from and the wires, the shelves of tools and weapons and what appears to be old archery trophies.

Another hour passes. He starts counting the ceiling tiles to pass the time, tracing cracks and stains with his eyes like they're constellations. For a family of insane, mafia-style werewolf hunters, they don't take very good care of their house. There are weird splotches of what he can only assume is mold, places where the ceiling looks almost squishy, like touching it would give him the same full-body shudder he got at that one petting zoo in the seventh grade. Mostly where there's metal, which makes sense, he guesses, because the air down here is a little stale, which suggests poor ventilation, and if it could get damp or humid down here then the condensation would focus itself on metal… on the metal pieces in the…

He's an idiot. He's the second person in their class, barely a tenth of a GPA point behind Lydia, and he's an idiot. The ceiling needs repairs around  _ metal _ , like the metal in his chains  _ that he can tug out. _ This will fix everything! By the time Scott gets here, he'll already be getting himself out of these stupid things and helping with Erica and Boyd, and everything will be okay.

He tries yanking on them, just once, to see what would happen. Nothing spectacular does, but then, he thinks he saw the screw budge a little. He tries again, and again, and again, watching as the chains come out just a little bit more each time. He steals a quick glance at the guards at the top of the stairs, but they have their backs to him and their posture is more slouched than alarmed, so he figures he has a little more time.

It's not until he's just broken free that he realizes how wrong he is.

"Well, well, well," comes a slow voice from behind him, mock-applause joining the complete contempt in Gerard's voice. "Look who's suddenly a little escape artist? Boys, did you see that? Why, if I didn't know how pathetic McCall's whole gang of juveniles was, I might be impressed."

Stiles turns slowly, doing his best to hide how hard his heart is beating, how much his lungs ache.

Gerard moves in the blink of an eye. "Look at me when I'm talking to you, boy," he snarls, and some broken, distant part of Stiles' mind thinks his threats aren’t nearly graphic enough to hold a candle to Derek’s. The rest of him, of course, is too busy gasping for breath through the hand that's clenched tightly against his throat. "Why are you doing this? Why fight to protect scum like them, when they’re really just a plague that needs to be wiped out?" he asks, the venom in his voice palpable while he nods at the two teens.

"Fuck you," he manages, and then proceeds to basically cough up a lung while he tries to recover from the basement floor.

"Fine. Have it your way," the old man says calmly, rage flickering in dark eyes. "Come on over boys. Evidently, Mr. Stilinski here thought it was too boring to stay put. Why don't you keep him entertained?"

The guards walk over, sadistic grins spread wide, and Stiles takes in another deep, rattling breath. He doesn't know what's coming, but he has a feeling it won't be good.

He's right, of course. The hours drag on in a pain-filled haze; nothing exists but the shine of boots and gloves speckled with blood, the glint of steel, the sound of air shuddering through his body in between wet coughs that taste like copper and salt. At some point, he's pretty sure there's a whip--sheets of agony along his back that make the world white out are accompanied by loud cracks, although the one functioning fraction of his mind not-so-helpfully supplies that they could just be electrocuting or burning him again and the cracking noises could be his ribs.

There's a faint crackle, and his aching muscles tense, trying to prepare for the next wave of whatever was coming before his mind has a chance to process the fuzzy static of a radio connection being opened.

"All hunters needed," someone says over the comm system, "report to the warehouse district ASAP, there's a situation with some 'wolves and a kanima. I repeat, all hunters needed--"

The voice cuts off, and Stiles distantly recognizes the argument taking place around him, voices trickling in through the haze of endorphins:

"--have to leave, we have orders--"

"--but the boss said--"

"--really think he's going anywhere like this?"

It takes a few minutes for his body to un-clench, for the searing pain that rolled in waves across him to stop making everything harder. Eventually, though, he manages to sit up, trying to clear his head enough that he could take stock of both his injuries and his situation.

Both are pretty bad.

He can't move more than a few feet before he has to stop, gasping for breath and blinking dark spots out of his eyes. He feels lightheaded from the blood loss, and the broken ribs aren't helping matters. On top of that, Boyd and Erica are still both out cold, all the way across the room, and there's no telling how soon the guards might be back. All in all, things definitely suck.

But he's not tied up anymore.

(Admittedly, moving hurts so badly that he might pass out, but… whatever. Details. He'll work with it.)

It takes him too long to get across the room, and by the end of it, he has actually thrown up twice, but he does it. Biting back a groan of pain, he reaches upwards, aching fingers grasping for the knob on the battery. It takes him a few tries, but he manages to switch the power off. Then he just lays there, gasping for breath and waiting for them to stir. He knows, logically, that he needs to be doing something more, that it's only a matter of time before Gerard's goons come back and he should at least be getting a weapon or something. He knows that the blackness hovering at the edges of his vision is a bad sign, that he's already lost too much blood and that much more will probably kill him.

He knows that at this point, when the hunters have been summoned for a show-down and hours have passed and no one is here, Scott isn't coming.

Scott isn't coming.

He's by himself, bloody and bruised and dying in some fucking basement because the werewolves haven't woken up yet and his best friend doesn't realize he's missing, and if he had more energy he would laugh at the gigantic cosmic joke that is his entire life. (Or maybe he wouldn't laugh. Maybe he'd just cry, salty, bitter tears because ten years of friendship comes down to this, because he's given up hours and schoolwork and a healthy relationship with his Dad in favor of helping Scott with fucking werewolves and this is what he gets? A meaningless, unnoticed death at the hands of a geriatric psychopath?)

He slumps against the floor, giving in to the exhaustion that's dragging his limbs down. If he can just rest for a minute… just close his eyes… he'll find a weapon after that…

There's a sudden flare of heat, like for just a second, he's standing in the desert at high noon, and he gasps as the agony subsides all at once, leaving behind a fair amount of adrenaline.

He pushes himself up, staring in distant fascination at the cuts that are closing on his body, watching the bruises fade and the pain ebb away.

"Holy shit," he murmurs. He makes a mental note to do some serious investigating on that later, and uses his suddenly improved state to get himself up and working on shaking Erica and Boyd awake.

It doesn't take long, now that they're no longer being continuously insta-fried by the car battery, but that doesn't mean they're in great shape. Erica wakes first, eyes wide in the darkness, and does her best to help him with Boyd while her healing factor is still kicking in. Once he's awake and propped up against the wall (and no longer tied up, honestly, for a bunch of deadly BAMF hunters, they have terrible knots, Stiles has seen girl scouts with better), Stiles stands shakily and starts stumbling towards the weapons. It's not hard to find one, considering they're surrounded by shelves full of them (and why is that, anyway? Are the Argents just that cocky about no prisoners being able to get out of their restraints, or does the uber-creepy torture-dungeon just double as a supply closet when they aren't satisfying their sadistic urges?). He grabs the first gun he finds, double checks that the safety is on and that it's loaded (in that order, because he doesn't want to have survived all this just to die because he shot himself in the face in a dark room), and calls it good enough. If he had more time, he'd look for a make and model that's more similar to his dad's, since that’s what he’s used to, but he isn't sure if they have minutes or hours until the hunters come back and he'd rather not risk anything.

He stumbles back over to Erica and Boyd, who are already starting to look a little better (yay, werewolf healing!), and opens his mouth to give an inspiring speech.

Instead, a pathetic little whimper of lingering pain comes out when he moves his arm too fast and pulls on his ribs, which--although good to know he hasn't healed completely, just has some crazy survival-instinct endorphins going on--is pretty embarrassing. Evidently it's close enough, though, because Boyd nods solemnly and Erica flashes her eyes. Stiles closes his fingers a little tighter around the gun while they put their claws out, and then proceeds to do the closest thing to a charge that he can while going up basement stairs in the dark with at least three broken ribs and a badly sprained ankle.

It doesn't look very impressive (or at least, he assumes it doesn't, since he  _ can't goddamn see anything _ , seriously, how did any of the hunters navigate?), but as it turns out, it doesn't need to. When he bursts out into the main house, it's completely empty. He still checks around every corner on the ground floor (what? His dad is a cop,  _ of course _ he knows to clear the area), but he feels a little ridiculous whispering that it's safe to his werewolf friends across the house.

Lately, everything feels a little ridiculous.

His car is still at the school, but that's not a problem, because he's known how to hotwire a car since he was eleven and spent a week grounded in his room for stealing Mrs. Levonwalsh's garden hose for purposes that They Will Never Discuss Again. He gets one of the fleet of nondescript black SUVs (seriously, is there a discount for buying in bulk?), hurries Erica and Boyd into the backseat, and beelines for the school. His phone, thankfully, is still in his locker (and doesn't that just drip with irony? He's bloody and bruised and still shaking with adrenaline, two half-dead werewolves trailing behind him, and he's pathetically grateful to still have 46% of his battery), although it has about a million more messages than it did before the game. There's a few from his dad in the first few hours he was gone, before the Sheriff must have realized demanding answers over text isn't going to solve anything if he's lost his phone. There are a little less than twenty from Scott, asking him where he is and informing him, with increasingly bad grammar, of updates on the Jackson/kanima/Argent situation. One is from a number he doesn't have saved, but it has perfect punctuation and uses chemical threats, so he adds it to his contacts as Lydia. The rest are automatic alerts from the Sheriff's station, updates on various reports around town.

He sighs, slumps against the lockers, and realizes Erica and Boyd are still standing there waiting on him. Yellow eyes glow in the dim room, not quite as bright as his phone but close, and he's having trouble putting together coherent thoughts because wow does his back hurt now that he's putting weight against it.

"What now, guys?" he asks, looking at them tiredly. He's half-expecting them to threaten him and vanish again, but instead, Boyd just shrugs.

"I dunno," Erica supplies. "We were going to follow you."

Stiles blinks slowly. The pain and endorphins must be messing with him, because otherwise there is no way that both of Derek's "better-than-thou" gone-rogue betas would be listening to the scrawny human sidekick.

"What?" he says intelligently.

"You heard her. What next, alpha?" Boyd rumbles, and that's just. Werewolves. What even are you.

"Hold up, what are you talking about? I'm not your alpha."

"Yeah, you are," Erica snaps. "Derek explained the pack to us. We can pick who we follow, and we picked you to be our alpha."

Stiles rolls his eyes and wishes he was at home under a small mountain of covers. "Okay, fine, you can pick your alpha, but you seem to be ignoring the fact that  _ I am literally not an alpha at all _ . In fact, I'm happily human, so you can just let that idea die right where it is."

"But you found us and rescued us. Even Derek didn't do that."

He stares at her for a moment, completely lost. "What are you talking about, 'I found you'? I was just in the basement and I saw you guys; it's not like I have some sort of fancy tracking ability. And besides, if I was actually your alpha you wouldn't be able to argue with me."

"We argued with Derek all the time!"

"Right, because Derek is the gold standard of werewolfdom that all others should be held to and never double-checked or verified."

Erica and Boyd scowl at him, a mutinous silence falling between them.

"Whatever. If you want to call me your alpha, you can, but I still expect you to go back to Derek and apologize at some point, okay? In the meantime, how are you both feeling?"

"Like shit," Erica says bluntly.

"Okay," he sighs, doing his best mental tetris to figure out how to do everything he needs. "I'm going to drop you two off at Deaton's, alright? Then I have to grab Lydia and head out to the warehouses--so you guys just lay low until I come back, got it?"

"Yeah," Boyd nods. "Let us know if you need anything."

"About a week's worth of sleep, but nothing you can get me," he grumbles under his breath. "Time to go and save some werewolf ass."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I totally want to write an alpha!Stiles story, but sadly, we're headed towards a whole and healthy (& Hale, lol) pack dynamic for the future. Next week, check back in for the beginnings of Spark!Stiles and lots of magicy goodness. <3


	2. ii. spark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His thumb is hovering over the pack group chat--unoriginally named "pack" because Derek is a fail!wolf--and he knows he should send a message, should let people know that he's heading out to meet with a mysterious woman with magic, but he just… doesn't want to. He thinks of the first aid kit that's steadily growing under his bathroom counter, thinks of how many nights in the past week alone he's been woken up by pack members crawling into his room at too-early-o'clock, thinks of the way they group around him anytime he's at school, like he's just the squishy human to be guarded (which, admittedly, he is, but still. It's getting a little claustrophobic).
> 
> Then he thinks of having just one afternoon to himself, of getting a little bit out of Beacon Hills and being able to put on whatever pop station he finds on the radio without having to worry about being judged by the Dark Leather and EyebrowsTM gang in his back seat.
> 
> Yeah, he decides. A little bit of space wouldn't kill him.
> 
> \---
> 
> magic, tree children, and harry potter shenanigans

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, as promised!! I think this is the longest chapter, aside from the "plus one" at the end. Damn you, Carlotta.

"Hello!" he crows, slamming his way into the vet's office with his foot, since his hands are already full of half a dozen crumbling books. "You, good sir, are going to tell me exactly what a Spark is and what the hell they can do, because if this is some Harry Potter shit I've already got the robes."

"Mr. Stilinski," Deaton says calmly, not even looking up from where he's examining a cat's leg. "I had wondered how long it'd take you to come to me."

"Not long at all, doc, considering that I've searched _everywhere_ for answers and no one seems to have any."

"No one except me, you mean," Deaton says calmly.

"Well, yeah," Stiles says, watching the older man cautiously. He still hasn't looked up from the cat. "But there's also the question of whether you do this whole Yoda thing because you have the answers and don't want to share them or whether you just don't know as much as you want us to think you do."

"Very perceptive."

"Yup, that's me, 'very perceptive' Stiles. All my teachers wrote that on the report cards, next to 'hyperactive' and 'disruptive'. So, what _do_ you know?"

"I know bits and pieces. Unfortunately, Mr. Stilinski, there are very few people in the world who know a lot about every type of magic practitioner--different types of magic rarely get along, and for that matter, neither do the people who use them. We tend to stay within our own groups, and as a result, there's a great deal of secrecy and misinformation circulating about each type. As a Druid, I could inform you about magics dealing with the balance between natural and supernatural affairs, but I wouldn't be able to tell you the first thing about how Mages or Necromancers operate."

"Necromancers are real? Dude, that's fucking awesome!" Stiles says, his eyes lighting up with excitement. "Wait, they're not evil, are they?"

"It depends on the individual."

"Well," Stiles snorts, "now that I have that to add to my nightmares… What can you tell me about Sparks? Even limited knowledge is better than what I have now."

"Sparks are… well, essentially what they sound like. They're human, with a spark of magic. I'm afraid there's very little powerful magic that you'll be able to accomplish, but what you can do is all based on willpower and belief."

"So when I finished the mountain ash line outside the club?"

"Yes, you willed there to be enough so you could protect your friends." Deaton pauses, studies him for a moment, and grabs a business card from one of his endless drawers. "I'm afraid that's as much as I know about Sparks. However, should you wish to learn more about the magical community, I happen to know a Spark nearby. Carlotta--she owns a little restaurant not too far from here."

Stiles takes the card, studies the address for a minute, and looks back up with an easy grin. "Thanks, doc. See you around."

With that, he hops down from the counter, swings himself around, and heads for the Jeep. His dad is working a double tonight, and if he goes now he can probably make it before dinner.

He shuts the car door, grabs his phone, and then--pauses. His thumb is hovering over the pack group chat--unoriginally named "pack" because Derek is a fail!wolf--and he knows he should send a message, should let people know that he's heading out to meet with a mysterious woman with magic, but he just… doesn't want to. He thinks of the first aid kit that's steadily growing under his bathroom counter, thinks of how many nights in the past week alone he's been woken up by pack members crawling into his room at too-early-o'clock, thinks of the way they group around him anytime he's at school, like he's just the squishy human to be guarded (which, admittedly, he is, but still. It's getting a little claustrophobic).

Then he thinks of having just one afternoon to himself, of getting a little bit out of Beacon Hills and being able to put on whatever pop station he finds on the radio without having to worry about being judged by the Dark Leather and EyebrowsTM gang in his back seat.

Yeah, he decides. A little bit of space wouldn't kill him.

He puts the phone away without sending a message, and drives.

*

As it turns out, Deaton's definition of "nearby" and his own do not so much line up, because it's been an hour and he's still driving. His GPS doesn't seem to have any intention of showing mercy, either.

Fifteen minutes later, he's about ready to call quits and give up entirely--he could still go home and do this some other day--when the little GPS lady says to turn. He winds up on a tiny, narrow road weaving through some woods, wondering if he's actually being led to a serial killer's house, when it suddenly opens up and he sees a gleaming restaurant with a large parking lot, almost completely filled.

He blinks, startled at the sea of cars after so much undeveloped forest, but to be fair, it is lunch rush hour. The place looks pretty nice, too--and when he gets out of the car, the smell is enough to make his mouth water.

Inside, the restaurant is mostly one big, open space. It would have a rustic feel, given the wooden walls, if not for all the bright light streaming in through massive windows or all the glass and stainless steel accents. At the front, there's a sign that says "Please Wait to be Seated", only somebody's covered up the "wait to be seated part" with a piece of paper and some tape and written "Seat Yourself" with a smiley face.

Stiles stands at the front of the restaurant, gawking like an idiot, until one of the harried-looking waiters pauses and asks if he needs anything.

"Uh," he says, ever-eloquent. "I'm here to meet someone named Carlotta?"

The waiter's eyes narrow, skeptical, and Stiles shifts uncomfortably. "Alan Deaton sent me," he adds as an afterthought, and something clears on the guy's face.

"In that case, I'm sure she'll want to meet you right away. Follow me," he says, and whisks Stiles away to the swinging doors that lead into the kitchen.

Carlotta, as it turns out, is the short, dark-haired woman with laugh lines and a spatula she brandishes like a weapon. She reminds Stiles of a general, directing troops between stovetops and ovens and mixing stations.

"Excuse me," he says awkwardly, "are you Carlotta?"

"Sure am. And who are you? Actually, scratch that, how'd you get back here?" she asked him, eyes narrowed.

"Oh, I'm Stiles. I followed--" he glanced around, but the waiter was no where to be found, "--one of your waiters back here, and I came because Alan Deaton sent me? Something about Sparks?"

Her guarded expression suddenly drops, and she grins at him unexpectedly. "Another of his protegees, are you?"

"Um. Not exactly?"

"Are you training to be a Druid? An emissary? Or are you just human, trying to find something to awaken inside?"

"None of the above, I think? I'm human. Or maybe I am a Spark? He wasn't super clear. I just want to know if there's anything I can do with this to protect my--my friends," he says, hesitating slightly. If being in the supernatural world has taught him anything over the past few months, it's that there are plenty of grudges, and it's best not to bring up the whole werewolf-pack thing unless you're absolutely sure of where everyone stands.

The way that Carlotta looks at him, though, he suspects she knows what he means anyway. "Well, if you're looking for fireballs, this isn't the right place. Pure offensive power, that's more Mage stuff, sometimes Witches. Sparks--we tend to be more… low key."

"So I can't do anything?" Stiles says, disappointment rising in him.

"I never said you can't do anything," Carlotta says, glancing around. The kitchen is loud, and they're in a secluded spot, but she still seems hesitant to go any further in the conversation. "Let's head back to my office, shall we?"

Stiles follows dutifully, bursting with a thousand questions but doing his best to contain them.

"Let's start with the basics," she says, pushing a jar towards him, "Do you know what this is?"

He opens it, peers inside, and lets his fingers brush the surface. "Mountain ash. This is actually what got me started on the whole thing--I was trying to make a barrier around a building, and I guess my… Spark?… was enough for me to finish about 50 feet with only a handful."

A flicker of surprise flashes across Carlotta's face, but it disappears as quickly as it came. "Interesting. In that case, I suppose I can skip the whole 'it's not just magic that's real' speech, can't I?"

"Yeah," Stiles says, holding back a laugh. "I've already run into a thing or two."

"And you're still alive. That's a good sign," she responds, holding his gaze seriously. "The most important thing for you to know is that Sparks deal in natural magic."

"I thought that was Druids?"

"Druids are… similar. Their power is also based on nature and balance, but it comes from the outside, like tapping an external energy source. Sparks do magic based on willpower, belief--intrinsic things. We have to understand and respect the world around us, and call on our own convictions to use magic."

"But… shouldn't internal power be stronger?"

She gives him a half-smile, looking quietly pleased. "That's what you'd think. In sheer ability, yes--Sparks are probably stronger than Druids. But since we call on our own strength, we can also use it up pretty quickly, especially when we use it to do things that go against nature. We could do something powerful, like grow a forest in a day or cause a huge explosion, but it would kill us instantly. So must of us just stick to small, controlled bursts of magic--things we can sleep off."

"Like what?" Stiles asks, his mind already swirling with potential.

"Well, for one, I mostly use my Spark to improve the quality of my ingredients--things like growing my own herbs, making the fruits and vegetables get ripe or stay good a little longer than usual; basic things. Nothing that couldn't happen naturally, given the right circumstances."

"And could I learn to do that stuff?"

"With the right teacher, yes."

"Okay, so where do I find a teacher?" Stiles says, leaning forward in his chair.

Carlotta smiles at him again, something hidden in her face. "I believe you just found one."

He blinks. "Wait, really? Just like that?"

"Why not? I could always use an extra set of hands in the garden. Come back tomorrow, and I can start training you in the basics."

"We can't do that today?" Stiles says, frowning. Carlotta just laughs at him.

"Maybe you can, but I still have a restaurant to run."

"But it's like an hour and a half drive!"

She studies him for a minute. "Are you free this time next week?"

Stiles thinks about it for a minute, shrugs. It's a Saturday afternoon, and most of the time, the pack is meeting up for werewolf-y training anyways. He's not always going to be free, but it's not going to be any better than this on a different day, so he ends up nodding.

"Good. Then come back in a week."

He agrees, turns to go, and then turns back to face her again. "You said we aren't good with offensive magic. Does that mean there's some kind of defensive magic that we _can_ do?"

"Come back next week, little Spark, and you will learn."

*

He goes back next week. And the week after that, and the one after that, and the one after that. His dad gives him a look when he asks for an advance on the gas money, and Scott whines once when he's not free to go see a movie, but for the most part, he's clear. And it's worth it--worth the extra gas and Scott's puppy-dog eyes--for what he's learning.

To be fair, it starts slow. He comes and watches her grow plants (with her mind!!!), and then she orders him to help her in the kitchen. She has him make a couple of basil leaves bloom, and that’s it.

But the next time that he shows up, still favoring one arm because the other was scratched up from where he got in the middle of Jackson and Scott fighting, Carlotta just gives him a serious look and sits him down with a thick book on wards and defensive spells.

A lot of it is hard to read, or hard to understand, or both. Even more of it is stuff that isn't all that useful--protective charms against random things, like rain, as opposed to shields against werewolf claws, but still. If he can prepare some of it beforehand, have insta-mountain-ash rings for when that mysterious Alpha pack finally showed their furry evil faces? It'll make his life a lot easier.

In addition, because they can only meet once a week, Carlotta usually sends him home with a book or two to read and come back with questions on. Which is homework, yeah, but it’s _cool_ homework. It’s here's-a-spell-book-what-do-you-want-to-learn-to-cast homework.

All in all, by the time a month goes by, he's learned a lot. Enough that one Sunday, while his dad is at work and the rest of the pack is grouped off doing various things, he's able to sit outside and meditate, listen to the wind blowing through the trees, and put up some wards for protection around his house.

When it's done, he gets up, calmly goes inside, tests them once or twice, and then proceeds to fist pump and jump up and down in his living room, doing a little dance of joy.

And then the Alpha pack happens. And in between run-ins with the twins, creepy serial-killings/sacrifices, and the agony of high school, he keeps going to Carlotta. She listens to him rant about whatever has happened, nods knowingly, and then orders him to _keep growing the thyme, Stiles._

Afterward--once all the dust has finally settled, once Jennifer and Deucalion are out of the picture and the parents have been rescued, after he's spent sixteen hours lying in a tub of icy water, his lungs not working--he goes to Carlotta and tells her what happened. She frowns, pats his cheek, and tells him that she understands but that also he's a goddamn idiot, and that magic like that doesn't come without a price.

After nearly two months, he trusts her, so he follows her advice. He goes to the Nemeton, meditates with the forest, and slams the "door in his mind", whatever the fuck that was supposed to be, shut.

Except, when he goes to leave, it doesn't really work. He tries to move his arms, to open his eyes, to scream for help, and nothing happens. He's stuck. Frozen.

He can't see anything, and he's having a hard time telling what's going on, but he's pretty sure he's having a panic attack. He goes to count out loud, but he can't, because he can't talk or move or do anything to protect himself, and oh god, this is definitely a panic attack.

There's a steady wave of… Soothing, maybe? Something rolls through him, helping him breathe. It's tinged with guilt and remorse, aching with loneliness.

He doesn't know what else to do, so he follows the feeling back to its origin, and finds it underneath him, but that doesn't make sense, because the only thing under him is--oh. _Oh_.

The Nemeton rumbles its welcome, and the feeling rolls through his bones.

He tries to ask it how it's alive, repeating the words over and over in his head, but only gets confusion. He tries to sigh, wishes he could move, and shoves his own confusion at the tree instead.

What he gets back is overwhelming, to say the least. It's a crushing wave of emotion, and everything tastes like pain and grief. There are flickers in his head of memories that aren't his--a little innocent girl, dying in its roots while it can do nothing but watch, fire and bloodshed and the agony of being cut down but not uprooted, just enough of it left that it was able to stay, to be a ghost of what once was. He sees countless threats and creatures and days-weeks-months roll by, all while it silently screams its pain and loss. He sees how it's never heard.

He sees himself, this little Spark and his friends reaching out to search for it. He sees them find it, sees the dirt crumbling around it, sees how close it is to death, how it craves release from this agony. He sees himself coming, perching on it and trying to protect himself, sees how lonely it is and how it hopes that this little being--how _he_ \--could bring relief.

The memories abide, and the feelings… Well, they don't disappear, but they fade, slightly. Enough that he can think.

He sends sympathy and reluctance and understanding to the tree, hopes it gets what he's saying. It does, so he sends a question and a picture of the forest, or at least the best one he can comes up with. The only response he gets is a slight glow from the other side of town and the faintest string of life.

He memorizes the place the glow is coming from, does his best to shove aside memories of his mother (she lingered in pain, days and weeks and months of slow, painful forgetting until she was begging for the end in her clear moments--) and snaps the last thread that binds the Nemeton to life.

*

So. As it turns out, killing the tree that had been a center of balance, magic, and supernatural power for centuries has certain effects. Certain magicky, power splashback, well-the-ley-lines-need- _somewhere_ -to-go effects. 

He goes to Carlotta, first. She takes one look at him, smacks him on the head, and says he's the biggest idiot she's ever met. Then she says that at this point, there's not much she can teach him, what with him essentially being the biggest magical gathering point on this side of the country all of a sudden, but that if he needs to borrow her books he still can. After that she tells him that he'd better go figure out what to do with this mess, and that she still expects him to grow her herbs.

He winds up at Allison's front door.

It's pretty much the last place he thought he'd be, to be honest, and it takes him almost ten minutes to convince himself to get out of the car. (He can't go inside, not at all, not with the way memories and nightmares mix in his head. That night in the basement was months ago, but he suspects it'll be an open wound for a while as far as psychological trauma goes.)

He rings her doorbell, does his best to ignore the way his stomach twists when she says his name, eyebrows raising with surprise, and asks her if she's free to run an errand with him.

In the car, he explains everything. How he healed that night in the basement. How he found out about Sparks, how he's been learning magic, how he accidentally took all the power of the Nemeton.

She asks him why she came to her, and his knuckles tighten. He'd hoped he wouldn't have to explain this part, but--she deserves answers.

(It's always better when they know.)

"I--" he stops. Frowns. Starts again. "The whole Gerard thing… I'm working on it, okay? I've forgiven Scott for not coming, and I'm going to be fine, one day, but for now, I'd rather that as few people as possible know about it. Erica and Boyd are still pissed I made them go back to Derek, and you're the only other one who knows I was anywhere near your house that night, and I don't want to have to explain that so they know where all the magic stuff is coming from, you know?"

Allison nods, and then she stays quiet for the rest of the ride, which is fine by him. They pull in at the spot that the Nemeton had shown him, a little nursery on the edge of town. He gets out and finds himself walking down aisles of plants, coming to a stop before a tiny sapling. He pays an inordinate amount of money, gets back in the car, and finds Allison watching him carefully.

"I didn't know," she says later, when they're in the forest and his hands are covered in dirt from where he's planting the baby oak tree. "About Gerard… I thought he was just going to keep you down there so there was one less human to worry about getting caught in the crossfire. I didn't know he was going to hurt you. If I'd known, I would have gotten you out. I understand if you don't trust me, but… I want you to know that. I would have saved you, Stiles. It doesn't make up for what I did, but I would have protected you."

Stiles pauses, his hands halfway through mounding the dirt. "You're right. It doesn't make up for it. But it's still good to hear."

Allison nods, offers him a tiny smile--more vulnerable than her full-scale Disney charm--and offers him a hand.

"Oh, no, not just yet. The reason I asked you out here is for what comes next."

"Which is?" she asks, brow furrowed.

"I try to imbue this with the spirit of the Nemeton," Stiles says, pushing up his sleeves. "I'm not sure how it'll go, but last time I communed with a magic tree, I couldn't move or speak or see anything, so I wanted someone around to protect me in case of, you know, werewolves."

Allison laughs lightly. "Aren't all the werewolves we know in Beacon Hills protecting you?"

"Okay, fine, in case of rabid squirrels. Either way, just… I don't know. Try to snap me out of it if there's any immediate threat?"

"I will," she says, and she looks serious, so he turns around and hopes she isn't going to go the way of her aunt and stab him in the back.

On second thought, this may have been a bad plan.

It's too late to turn back, though, so he reaches out, grabs the magic left by the Nemeton, and yanks. The essence of it binds to the oak quite nicely, latching on and already starting to undo some of the poisonous magic left behind by the last Nemeton's agony, but the power stays with him, vibrating under his skin.

He tries two more times, shoving power at the new Nemeton, but nothing happens, the magic just gets tenser.

Eventually, he sighs, pulls himself out of the trace, and wiggles a little bit, stretching out his back. The hum under his skin isn't fading, and he knows from weeks of magic practice sessions that it won't go away until he casts something to take the edge off.

Allison is still perched on the edge of the old Nemeton's stump, frowning as she watches him. "Did it work?"

"Sort of?" Stiles sighs, frustrated. "This is the new Nemeton, but it's not taking the power of the old one. I've still got all this excess magic."

He takes a deep breath and tries to let go of the anxiety. "I'll figure it out. Just… don't freak out, okay? I'm going to help this little guy out and then maybe put up some protection, but it's going to look a little weird."

"How wei-- _oh my god,_ " Allison says, her eyes huge as he grows the tree. It's actually not all that different from rapid-growing Carlotta's plants--a little more complicated, because, hey, oak trees with magical powers and rosemary, not the same thing. It works out okay, though, and it burns off some of the extra magic in him--plus, the tiny, six-inch tall sapling is now closer to a four-foot-tall tree (still small but bigger!).

Allison stares at him, then at the tree, then at him again, her mouth hanging open slightly. "Holy shit, you have magic."

Stiles looks at her, amused. "Yeah. That's kinda what today was all about."

"I know, but I didn't expect--magic!!"

"You okay there, Ally?" he laughs.

"Do it again!"

"Um, no. I don't want to mess with the natural order of things any more than I have to. The tree would have grown that way anyways, I just sped up the process, but it's still better to minimize interference with living things. I was going to put up some wards, but they won't look as cool as rapid-growing does."

Allison leans forward, watching him with wide eyes, and he snorts. He walks around the Nemeton a few times, reinforcing his connection with the tree and its direct surroundings, and starts tracing runes in the air--basic things, like protection and harmony, along with specific shields to be put in place against anyone with ill will finding the tree or harming it. The runes hover in the air for just a moment, faint wisps of color, before fading into nothing as the enchantments snap into place.

"There we go. All done," he says as the last rune--one for general health--dissolves. Allison jumps up, still looking excited, and bounds towards him, reaching out cautiously toward the tree her fingers brushed the bark, and a wave of contentment and gratitude rolls through Stiles.

Allison jumps back, cradling her hand to her chest, her eyes wide. "What was that? Did you feel that?"

"The tree? Yeah," he says, watching it curiously. "I shouldn't have, though. And neither should you, for that matter. Before, I was only able to feel it like that when I was already in a deep trance, drawing on its power, and in direct contact with it."

"Do you think it's stronger now, because you… you know, healed it? Or, I don't know made a new one?" she asks, wrinkling her nose slightly. "Wait, that sounds weird."

"It's possible," Stiles admits, eyeing the baby oak cautiously. "I don't really know much about how this all works."

The Nemeton sends a wave of happy-joy-playfulness at both of them, and Stiles frowns, studying the link between them. "It's almost like…" he pauses, cocking his head, and sends curiosity back.

The response he gets is… chaotic at best. There's a mess of emotions and feelings and images, all tangled together with gut instinct. Stiles is still trying to figure it out when he hears Allison's quiet "oh".

"Stiles," she says, her face a combination of confused and overwhelmed, "it thinks we're its parents."

He's too busy freaking the fuck out at the moment, but in the weeks to come, between Allison accompanying him on tree field-trips and the occasional magic lesson, he'll take full advantage of making all the jokes that come with being platonic tree-raising partners. He'll also, in the quiet moments, appreciate the fact that Allison is a lot more trustworthy now that she's not pointing a crossbow at his pack, and that maybe, what they have now is actually approaching best friendship (a thought he'll put away and not touch unless absolutely necessary, because all the complications of that are enough to make his head hurt.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next week, a shorter chapter: Stiles has scars. It's only logical that the pack be kept out of the loop if they freak out every time he brings them up. 
> 
> <3


	3. iii. scars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thing about being a squishy human--even a squishy human with magic--is that being in a werewolf pack means you get hurt.
> 
> Not intentionally, of course--none of the wolves would ever do something like that on purpose.
> 
> Well, not now, anyways. In the past… Derek wasn't the best Alpha. His betas weren't the best at controlling themselves. Stiles wasn't the best at following the whole "don't poke them with a stick on the full moon" rule.
> 
> There were a lot of mistakes all around, honestly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is up a little later than anticipated! I was aiming to update every Saturday, but as of writing this author's note, it is officially..... 11 minutes into Sunday (whoops). Also, this is going to be one of the shorter chapters, so fair warning for that. Peter somehow snuck his way into this one, too, so assume the usual Peter warnings.
> 
> Other than that, please enjoy and let me know what you think! I always look forward to hearing your reactions, and those of you who have left comments already totally made my day <3

The thing about being a squishy human--even a squishy human with magic--is that being in a werewolf pack means you get hurt.

Not intentionally, of course--none of the wolves would ever do something like that on purpose.

Well, not  _ now _ , anyways. In the past… Derek wasn't the best Alpha. His betas weren't the best at controlling themselves. Stiles wasn't the best at following the whole "don't poke them with a stick on the full moon" rule.

There were a lot of mistakes all around, honestly.

But they're better now! Derek's pulled himself together (more or less), the pack is actually operating as a pack, and Stiles has finally coerced Allison into teaching him some of her ninja ways, so he's getting better at ducking the claws when they get to close.

That doesn't mean he always avoids them, though. And staying out of the way when they're training or play-fighting isn't the same as avoiding injuries when there's someone out to get him. It's been a little over two years of fighting and running and, you know, screaming for help because he's about to die, and he's gotten really lucky (or maybe just really fast), but the near-death experiences still leave a mark. Or several.

He's not ashamed of it, honestly. In fact, there may have been a night or two, early on, when he stood in front of the mirror and stared at some of the scars--the cool ones, that left jagged claw marks in his skin without quite so many of the implications or near-death experiences that made his stomach turn--and pretended it made him a badass, because he could totally star in an action film at this point. The problem is that as soon as the rest of the pack remembers how human and breakable Stiles is, they start trying to keep him out of the way of any potential threats. Which, in Beacon Hills, is everything.

Stiles doesn't really mind being left out of the blood-and-gore, claws-and-teeth part; that stuff is really for the werewolves anyway. But after the Golem Incident of 8 months ago (in which the pack saw some of the scars on his hip from the Alpha pack during a puppy pile, freaked out, and proceeded to charge into battle without telling him first and almost die because nobody did the research), he's learned that it's better if he's cautious about letting them see the aftermath of those fights on his skin. Not because he doesn't trust them or is ashamed of the way he looks or thinks that he's weak, but because Scott, bless his little marshmallow soul, would actually crumble and die if he remembered how many times he's gotten carried away and let werewolf claws dig in.

Luckily, there's an easy solution: he just wears flannel! It covers up most of the really bad scars, isn't an obvious cover because that's what he wears anyway, and it means he doesn't have to buy new clothes, so it's really a win all around, as far as Stiles is concerned. (Well, except for the large number of thinly veiled threats from Lydia about burning his entire wardrobe. Those kind of scare him.)

Disappointingly, however, there is not--so far as Stiles can tell--any sort of long-sleeved-flannel-swimwear that has been invented yet, which, aside from being a real tragedy, also means that he can't really go swimming with the Pack. And if he can't go swimming with them, he should really avoid going with them to pools, or lakes, or beaches, or anywhere that could end with him getting thrown in the water.

And yet: here he is, one sticky-hot day in August, baking in 90-degree weather while the rest of the Pack swims in the nice, cool-looking lake water.

He yanks his gaze away and tries to re-focus on the econ book in his lap, but it's no good. The cold water is just a few feet away, taunting him, and he can't think above all the shouting, much less read and interpret supply/demand graphs. Derek grunts as one of the pack members--Issac?--launches himself as a projectile weapon and battle cries go out from all the others. Stiles has just enough time to think  _ oh no _ before he's blinking water out of his eyes in the aftermath of Erica's cannonball.

He holds up the book, now blurry where the ink had gotten covered in water, and sighs. So much for getting ahead.

By the time he gets back from dropping his school stuff off in the car, the water-fight seems to have transformed into some sort of water-ninja-dueling, because Scott is waving a reed like it's a sword and Stiles can see Boyd swimming beneath the water's surface, getting ready to pounce. Meanwhile, nobody seems to have noticed Allison and Lydia creeping up behind the whole pack, wicked grins on their faces that honestly scare Stiles more than most of the supernatural critters that they've faced in the last year.

He finds a spot that's slightly elevated, in the shade of what appears to be a beech tree, and leans back with a grin. He can't go swimming without causing months of problems for himself, but he can certainly watch his pack's swift demise at the hands of the most brilliant women he knows… and now he kind of feels like he should be cackling evilly, so that's interesting.

(Allison and Lydia win, of course. The Team ~~Human~~ Not Werewolf car blasts victorious music the whole way home and the loft smells like wet dog for weeks.)

Oddly enough, it's Peter who ends up seeing his scars. It's after a fight with some baby Hydras, which should be adorable but really,  _ really _ aren't, and Stiles is hastily stripping so the acid on his clothes doesn't eat through his skin next. The rest of the 'wolves are off chasing down the momma Hydra, who had a frankly terrifying roar that he's pretty sure is still echoing in his ears.

He's halfway through stumbling out of his now-dead-to-the-world jeans when he remembers that Peter's still there. Then he realizes with growing hysterical fear that he is standing mostly-naked in the woods next to Peter-fucking-Hale.

He knows his heart must be going insane, which means that Peter can hear his heart going insane, but he still does his best to even his breathing and keep his face calm as he turns around.

"A little help, Creeperwolf? I should have a change of clothes in the Camero, and you can get there faster than me."

Peter doesn't respond, just keeps his eyes trained on Stiles' torso, gaze following the scar tissue where it arcs and jumps and swipes across his skin. Stiles shifts uncomfortably, shivering in the cold breeze and crossing his arms over his chest half-unconsciously. "Peter?"

"Did you know," the other man says suddenly, making eye contact in a way that suddenly had Stiles wishing good old crazy-murdering-Alpha-Peter would come back, "that with damage severe enough, werewolves can scar?"

Stiles frowns, not quite sure how to address that. "Well, I had assumed so. I mean, isn't that basically how werewolf tattoos work? It wouldn't stay if it could heal."

"Clever boy," Peter says, but his gaze is only half there. He stands quietly for a minute, Stiles' unease thickening the air between them.

"After the fire," the werewolf finally says, "it took years for the burns to fade. I could feel them, healing so very slowly, like my body couldn't handle fixing more than one cell at a time. They're gone now--at least, most of them. Some, I don't think will ever go away."

Stiles frowns, utterly lost in this conversation. "Do you want them to?"

Peter wheels around, his back to Stiles, and for the millionth time that night, Stiles is left to wonder what's happening. "I'll get those clothes for you."

(Later, when they fight whatever creature has crawled out to torment them that week, Peter is always silently there, checking up on Stiles and supplying him with extra hoodies when necessary. They never talk about it, not to each other or the rest of the Pack, but when the next lake visit happens, Peter comes with them and sits reading under the trees near Stiles.)


	4. iv. sex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> College is a wild time. 
> 
> All the way across the country at NYU, there isn't the general small-town knowledge of Stiles'… eclectic history hanging over him. At long last, he can wander into gay bars without getting the double-takes he always got at the Bulge from his peers. He can meet pretty girls in class who don't only remember him as the kid who shoved 13 jellybeans up his nose and had to be taken to the nurse. 
> 
> He can then take those dates somewhere that isn't one of the places he nearly died, which at this point, is most of Beacon Hills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again with another short chapter. *hides face*
> 
> Important note here: despite the title of this chapter, this is not going to be explicit/smut. Stiles is just finally going to be able to date/have relationships not immediately doomed, since he's now in college, rather than still in Beacon Hills (because let's face it, everything in Beacon Hills is cursed). Also, I am in no way good at/qualified to write smut, so you can just safely assume that that won't be popping up in my fics.

College is a wild time, and not just because of the Fae that keep showing up and spiking his drinks.

The thing is, away from prying eyes (and ears and noses, werewolves what the fuck), Stiles can finally explore the wonders of dating without having to walk into his house and have everybody know exactly who he was with and what shampoo he used beforehand and how far they went. Plus, all the way across the country at NYU and with a good safety barrier of miles between him and Lydia (and her endless list of embarrassing stories), who's currently taking over MIT, there isn't the general small-town knowledge of Stiles'… eclectic history hanging over him. At long last, he can wander into gay bars without getting the double-takes he always got at the Bulge from his peers. He can meet pretty girls in class who don't only remember him as the kid who shoved 13 jellybeans up his nose and had to be taken to the nurse (or worse, as the kid who didn't speak for a year after his mom died). He can then take those dates somewhere that  _ isn't one of the places he nearly died _ , which at this point, is most of Beacon Hills.

So yeah. All in all, much better dating potential in the big city.

The first time, Stiles actually thinks it's a fluke. He's doing his awkward, half-flirting-half-sharing-notes routine that had always ended with Lydia rolling her eyes and walking away, only when he asks the girl--Whitney, tall and pretty, with a giggle like one of those little zen fountains--if she wants to go grab a coffee and compare Econ papers, she says yes.

He's so stunned that he fumbles through the date, screws up the walk home badly, and winds up giving up halfway through and admitting that he has little to no experience with… well, most of it, really. He doesn't mention Malia, doesn't really count her, because while they learned a lot from each other about bodies, it wasn't the same as dating. It was mostly just… well, sex. Sex and intense conversations, but never coffee or movies or meet-the-family stuff. Hell, the pack had never even realized the sex part was happening, because as her anchor their scents were already so mixed it didn't make much difference.

"Really?" she says, surprised, when he's confessing that he's basically never had a girlfriend, "I would've thought girls would be lining up to be with you. You're cute, smart, and pretty funny. You're actually quite a catch, Stiles."

And then he proceeds to continue to gawk at her like an idiot for another minute or two. By the time they get back to the dorms, she has, against all logic, set up a follow-up date. They get to her room and she kisses him, winks, and closes the door in his face.

He and Whitney see each other a few more times, but they don't really fit. Neither do he and Jamie, the half-frat-boy-half-academic he ran into clubbing, or he and Tess, the beautiful student library assistant who writes rough drafts next to him for six months before making a move. Over the next two years or so, there's a whole parade of people Stiles meets and dates and fucks, not necessarily in that order--all genders and races and shapes. He just never finds someone who  _ clicks _ , no matter how good the sex.

(It's a relief not to hide his scars. He gets some odd looks, some concerned questions, but nothing even close to activated over-protective werewolf mode. Hell, some of his partners are just impressed, or think the scars are beautiful. There's something cathartic about it.)

Eventually, he does a few google searches, devours everything the internet has to offer on the definition of "aromantic", orders a pin, and calls it a day. Then he celebrates his newfound self-awareness by going out and dragging home the most gorgeous one-nighter he's ever seen, loosing himself in the feel of the human body, and calls it a night, too.

(He carefully doesn't consider the implications of his subconscious choosing a crush on Lydia, a girl he's always known is unattainable, and setting up 15-year-plans that he'd never have to act on, because that's a level of understanding he doesn't really want to have of the way his own mind works.)

By the time junior year has rolled around, he's settled into himself more. Enough that, though still flannel, his closet is mostly clothes that actually fit him. Enough that he texts or emails his research instead of dropping everything to fly back every time there's a minor incident, because he trusts the pack to do this themselves, to survive his absence. (Trust, Stiles has learned, is far more precious than anything else--it takes the longest to grow and is the easiest to break, and he's so proud of how far he's come. Of how far they've all come.)

He's settled enough that when he gets a heavily typo-ed text from Scott at 4:23 in the morning saying that everything's fine but he thought Stiles would want to know that they took care of the witch, and that they only didn't tell him about it because they were worried she'd target him for the virgin sacrifice portion of things, he doesn't get angry or upset or scared. He just snorts, sends back a "k", and looks back down where Brian has his mouth around Stiles' dick.

If the pack wants to believe he's a virgin, fine. He's got better things to do than correct them and endure the next six months of attempts to disprove him (because that's totally what Erica would do).

He trusts the pack with his life. Better yet, he trusts them with their lives. But that doesn't mean they have to know every thing he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, a short chapter, but one I felt Stiles needed to get that distance and grow on his own. Next time: we've finally made it to my favorite of the tropes--tattoos! ~Secret~ tattoos! (Well, kind of.)


	5. v. tattoos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tree on his back is beautiful, all delicate swirling lines and natural colors, leaves that sway and rustle when he's casting. It's also the most fucking painful thing he's ever done.

He gets his first tattoo when he's 21.

He's known what it's going to be since he was 17, been able to get it since 18, but he waits until 21 so he can drink first, because there's no way in hell he's getting a tattoo without at least a little alcohol in his system.

He has a small(ish) party, complete with most of the idiots on his dorm floor, orders a keg that is gone disconcertingly quickly, and walks into a tattoo parlor he's been staking out for the past 6 months at 9:31 PM. He does his best to stand straight and walk evenly, because there's a small gaggle of Fae who run the supernatural backdoor he's trying to get into and the last thing he needs is to give them the upper hand by letting them know he's tipsy. He can already imagine what would happen if the rumors spread--Stiles Stilinski, the Spark who walked into a Fae establishment without the ability to think straight. That coven in Salem would probably drive the 4 hours just to laugh in his face.

"You here for a tattoo?" the burly man behind the counter asks. Stiles half expects him to be polishing a shotgun, but he's not. He's… well, Stiles isn't actually sure, but he seems to be drawing something--an abstract tattoo, piece of art, or ward, he isn't sure, but it's unexpectedly delicate. Beautiful.

"Yep," Stiles says, doing his best to quell the anxiety that's rising in him.

"You have an appointment?" the man asks, pulling out something that looks vaguely like a calligraphy pen and signing his name at the bottom.

"Uh, yeah," Stiles says, doing his best not to sound like the drunk college boy he is.

The guy behind the counter puts down his pen with a little flourish, stretches a bit, and says, "Alright, let's get the paperwork started."

The tree on his back is beautiful, all delicate swirling lines and natural colors, leaves that sway and rustle when he's casting. It's also the most fucking painful thing he's ever done.

It was supposed to be his only tattoo--Yggsdrasil near some of his chakras, partly to balance out his excess magic and partly as a nod to his family, from his mom's northern European roots to the Nemeton that's waiting for him in Beacon Hills.

But like most things in Stiles' life, things don't exactly go as planned.

It's not his fault, okay? It's just that there happened to be a scholarship program for spending the summer in Rome, and his essay happened to win, and who was he to turn down the chance to take summer classes within walking distance of the Vatican and actual gelato? And then, when he got there, he just happened to run into a sorceress who offered to do runic tattoos, mostly ward-based stuff but with a special ink that allowed him to manipulate the runes and amplify his own magic even further. What was he supposed to do, say no?

After that came the half-goblin family with protection charms, and the selkie with elemental magic, and that one Unseelie Fae who'd taken a liking to Stiles and given him the blessing of winter in the form of frost fractal tattoos, spiraling up his arms.

None of them are extremely powerful, but when channeled properly, they help bind and balance his overflowing, mostly-borrowed power. In fact, for the most part, they just make him more in tune with the world around him. He still can't do more than one strong offensive spell without passing out. He's not in any danger of pulling a Willow and ascending to the goddess level of magic.

But that doesn't change the fact that by the time his senior year of college rolls around, he actually looks pretty badass, all scars and tattoos and a decent amount of hard-earned, running-for-his-life muscle.

In between casual, friends-with-benefits hookups and the occasional Harry Potter style duel between good and evil, he gets others, too. Tattoos that have nothing to do with magic and everything to do with him.

They're small things, mostly. A word in Polish for his mom, a tiny sheriff's badge for his dad. A Celtic-style wolf outline on his arm. An arrow for Allison, a constellation for Scott. Little reminders of who he is and where he came from.

(On especially long nights, reminders of who's waiting for him back home.)

(He remembers a time, what feels like forever ago, when the very idea of getting tattoos was terrifying and bloody and made his stomach churn. These days, he leans into the pain, catches his reflection out of the corner of his eye and smiles. Ink on skin, skin on bone; blood and magic coursing through him. The things he traps in himself--family and friends, wards and runes, protection and balance--they are as much a part of who he is as anything else about him.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: the culmination! Shit hits the fan, Stiles returns home, and we get the dramatic glow-up recognition that has to happen in every Disney Chanel Original Movie.


	6. +i. truth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He doesn't think about the fact that he hasn't been to Beacon Hills in actual, literal years until his plane has already landed and he's walking outside, breathing in air that tastes faintly of homesickness. He feels like everything must have changed while he's been gone, like the whole world must be different now, and in some ways, it is. There are some new stores on the streets, some old ones missing. Unfamiliar posters and people speckle the area as he cuts through downtown, heading to an apartment he's known the address to for almost a year but only ever seen through video chats.
> 
> But in so many other ways… Beacon Hills is still the same. He drives past the turn off for the high school, feels his gut flip while he tries to take in how small it all looks.
> 
> Beacon Hills is different, but it's still Beacon Hills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE DID IT. THIS IS THE LAST ONE. 
> 
> This is lowkey such a big deal for me, guys. It's the longest actual story I've posted on AO3--which is still so short compared to other peoples', but it makes me happy, okay?--and it's one of several stories that I started in high school and wrote in short bursts once every few months over the course of the last... four years??? I'm not great at finishing projects, guys. It's a problem, I know. 
> 
> Anyways, the point is that thank you all for reading! It's been kind of a lot of buildup so far, but it will all (hopefully) pay off now. Enjoy, comment, and let me know about all your favorite Teen Wolf fics, because I'm always looking for new things to read! <3

Nothing was supposed to go wrong. He wasn't coming back to deal with pixies or dimensional gaps or fucking harpies or anything like that; he just wanted to spend a few nights in his own bed, check up on his tree-child, and maybe go steal a few of Boyd's gingersnap cookies while he was at it.

He was going to drive back, making a few stops in little towns to make house calls for a few supernatural contacts he'd picked up over the last few years. By the time he actually got to Beacon Hills, all his work was going to be over, he was going to see the Pack again for the first time in forever, and he was finally, finally going to get some R&R.

Because it's his life, of course, none of that goes to plan.

The night before he's supposed to drive out, he gets a frantic phone call that's chopping in and out every other minute, the sound of screams and roars filling the background.

It's from his dad. His dad, who doesn't call him back, not even two hours later. His dad, who no one at the Sheriff's station can account for. His dad, who has apparently been off-grid for  _ two fucking days _ that no one told him about.

Stiles takes a few seconds to scream into a pillow because evidently everyone in Beacon Hills is a goddamn moron. Then he books the first plane ticket he can find that's leaving for northern California, packs in a rush, and drags his ass to the airport at a disgusting hour in the morning.

He doesn't think about the fact that he hasn't been to Beacon Hills in actual, literal years until his plane has already landed and he's walking outside, breathing in air that tastes faintly of homesickness. He feels like everything must have changed while he's been gone, like the whole world must be different now, and in some ways, it is. There are some new stores on the streets, some old ones missing. Unfamiliar posters and people speckle the area as he cuts through downtown, heading to an apartment he's known the address to for almost a year but only ever seen through video chats.

But in so many other ways… Beacon Hills is still the same. He drives past the turn off for the high school, feels his gut flip while he tries to take in how small it all looks.

Beacon Hills is different, but it's still Beacon Hills.

(Stiles thinks, distantly, between the aching oddity of it all and the numbing fear and the burning anger, that if he were out of his car and walking around, he probably wouldn't even get any strange looks for his tattoos--that people would greet him and welcome him back and ask him how he's been, and under all his long sleeves, they'd never even know that he's changed too. That he's changed more than this sleepy old town.)

It's soothing, in an odd way, when he barges into the apartment and finds the Pack in the same state of disarray he'd left them in almost four years before.

Derek is halfway through a growl, Scott seconds away from throttling his Alpha. Boyd and Erica are crouched together, curled into one being, while Allison stands in the corner with flinty eyes and sharpened steel. Lydia is standing closest to the door, a dangerous boredom in her eyes that promises experiments with fire if things don't pick up speed soon.

Evidently, his dramatic entrance is enough to draw her attention, because she perks up, a detached interest lighting up her features. "Stiles! I thought you weren't coming back for a few days."

"I wasn't," he says, and then hugs her, because even when he's pissed as hell and three seconds from blowing up a building, there are pack bonds that thrum in his chest and remind him that this is more than friends or family, that this is Pack, ancient and sacred and everything he holds dear. "But then I found out that someone has been missing for two days and no one told me."

Scott and Derek both go still instantly, faces perfectly bland in the way that means an internal werewolf freak-out. They glance at each other and--okay, that's weird. Stiles had never in a million years thought that Scott and Derek would be able to do the whole silent-communication thing.

"I'm sorry, Stiles," Scott says, stepping forward, "There may have been some… miscommunication about who was supposed to let you know. Things have been a little hectic."

"No shit, Sherlock," Stiles snaps, halfway between wanting to hug his best friend and throttle him. "But when things get 'a little hectic', you're supposed to come to me. You know, research guru and all that?"

Scott and Derek do their creepy silent-communication thing again, and this time it's Derek who steps forward, gets close enough to brush a hand against Stiles' back and make the pack bond hum happily. "We know that you're the best for research, Stiles, it's just that… we know what we're facing. We've fought this particular pack before, we just weren't expecting them to come back. And honestly? There's not much you can do, especially not from all the way in New York."

"Well, I'm not in New York now, so lay it on me, Sourwolf," Stiles says, dropping his bags on the couch and slipping past Boyd and Erica with a gentle nudge. Allison scoots to the side slightly, and he claims the other half of her corner so he can see the whole Pack, soothe the part of him that's screaming to gather them all up and never let them go.

He waits for Derek to protest, for them to complain that he's too breakable, too unused to fighting, too weak, but to the Alpha's credit, he doesn't. He just moves over to the table and smooths out the map, starts pointing out the spots they've already checked and the boundaries they've secured.

Looking at the map laid out in front of him, all the possibilities and dead-ends marked off in colorful pens, he has to reluctantly admit that… there's not much more he would've done. Not much more that he could've done, given their resources and information. But "not much more" isn't the same as _nothing_.

The exhaustion in his Alphas' eyes tells him enough about how hard they've been working, and the knot of anger in his gut unravels, lets his shoulders sink down for the first time in hours. "Let me go grab a few things from the car, I'll be right back."

A few things, of course, is two duffel bags overflowing with his magic supplies. It's been a while since he's had to cast the location spell he has in mind, and he doesn't quite remember what he needs. Even if he did remember, he was in a rush while he was packing, and everything's just been shoved into bags, so he has no idea where any of it is.

(What? He's grown into himself, but that doesn't mean Stiles will ever stop being Stiles.)

By the time he's made it back up to the loft, he's remembered that he'll need something of his Dad's and realized that unless they have something on hand he'll have to delay a little longer while he drives over to his house. He gets back into the apartment, where nothing has changed but the intensity of Scott and Derek's whispers, and drops the bags on the floor near the table.

"I don't suppose you have anything of my dad's, do you?" he asks, more out of habit than anything else. He's pleasantly surprised when Scott pulls out a rumpled white shirt that smells like the Sheriff, muttering something about scent tracking.

Stiles pulls out his notebook, skims the list of ingredients, and starts rummaging through his neatly labeled bags of herbs, tossing a few on the table. Most of the pack is watching him now, curiosity making their gaze burn against his back.

"Stiles…" Scott begins carefully, "What are you doing?"

For the first time since coming back to Beacon Hills, it really occurs to him that the Pack doesn't know about his magic. He hasn't kept it a secret, exactly. Allison knows, and if anyone had ever asked him, he would've been upfront about it. But he's gotten used to no one back home really knowing about his Spark or the excess Nemeton magic, and the thought of changing that status quo is… weird.

Still. It's his dad, so that moment of hesitation only lasts as long as it takes for the thought to form.

"Casting a locator spell," he says promptly, and glances up just long enough to appreciate the Shocked ScottTM look that he's missed so much.

"What? I mean, how? You're not a witch," Derek says, frowning slightly.

Allison is watching him, a faint smile on her lips. Lydia is across the room, but leaning forward like some new plot twist was just revealed on her favorite soap opera. Scott, of course, still hasn't quite picked his jaw up off the floor.

"No, I'm not. But I'm a fairly powerful Spark, and this is well within my range."

Allison's mouth twitches at the words "fairly powerful", but none of the others notice. They're too busy giving him strange looks.

"A spark? What's that?" Erica asks with a frown, leaning forward.

"A human with magic," Derek answers for him, his forehead crinkling under the weight of his confusion. "But Sparks are very weak, they couldn't do a location spell. To be honest, I didn't even think there were any left."

Stiles glances up with a wry smile, wondering what the wolf would say if he saw the restaurant full of Sparks on the edge of Hale territory. "We can do more powerful things, but most of us don't. And anyway, I'm… somewhat of an exception."

He can still feel the confusion and hurt radiating off of Scott, but he doesn't have time to deal with everyone else's surprise right now. Later, he promises silently, later I'll handle it. For now, though, he closes his eyes and feels the familiar magic well up inside him, a strange mix of youthful energy and ancient melancholy, leftovers from the Nemeton that still lay inside him. His own magic, the stuff that let him finish the mountain ash line and grow herbs so many years ago, is barely an aftertaste of ozone on his tongue.

(If Stiles was a different person, one with a more bruised soul or brittle mind, that might bother him. He might search for a way to bend the Nemeton's magic to his own, to make them one and the same, to control instead of channel.)

(But he's not. He's Stiles and he never wanted the power to begin with and somewhere deep inside him is still the little boy who helped his mother in the garden, felt the roots and the soil and the decomposing things. He's Stiles and he knows better than to think he has any ownership over his magic, knows that it's all just borrowed from the earth anyway and that one day it will return there.)

*

The spell works. The spell works and they're halfway through planning a raid on the small cave system where the rival pack is holed up when Stiles realizes they have no intention of letting him come. His newfound trust, it seems, doesn't stretch into actual battle.

He wonders what they'd say if he told them about the goblin skirmishes he'd waded through, trying to stop the fighting even as the killing fields turned red-black in the moonlight. Wonders how helpless they'd think he was if they knew about the weeks he spent in the Fae realm, watching massive armies crash together like waves onto the shore. Wonders what they'd think of him if they knew of the growing collection of black lines over his heart, each one another supernatural creature that he's killed.

(Spending years away from the Pack allowed him to grow and flourish and expand into himself, but it was also terribly, achingly lonely--especially when it meant having to watch his own back while the latest Big Bad stirred up trouble.)

There's steel in Derek's eyes, though, and iron in his spine. Stiles watches him and Scott, watches the way they silently stand between him and the table, only half-conscious of their agreement, and knows it'd do no good. It'd delay them from acting and wouldn't convince them to let him come, so there's no point. He may as well let them plot and plan and maneuver, get all their troops in place, and act. There's nothing they can do to stop him from following, from guarding their flank and providing backup.

He looks at Allison, who they've put in charge of guarding him--a subtle but effective way of keeping the humans "out of danger". She meets his gaze, wildfire in her face, and they grin at each other darkly. She'll guard him, alright. She'll be there every step of the way through the battlefield and beyond.

They give the Pack a few minutes' head start, so none of the 'wolves will circle back around and sniff them out. It doesn't take long, though--Stiles is not the only one desperate to get the Sheriff back, and none of them are very interested in taking their time for the sake of extra caution.

If they were fighting something smarter than them, certainly. They'd take the time to check for traps and guard their flank carefully. But this is an old-fashioned battle for territory, just claws and fangs and ripping pain. There won't be a second plan in place.

As they trek through the woods, warm breaths billowing in the cool night air, Stiles relishes in the feel of the world around him. Living in New York is fantastic, but doesn't provide many opportunities for appreciating nature, and the last time he was here he was still learning how magic felt. Now, it's like he's awake for the first time: despite the late hour, the trees are practically humming with energy, the ground singing beneath his feet with each step. Even the darkness seems sharper, more crystalline.

_ Welcome home, _ the land around him murmurs. _Welcome home, little Nemeton._

By the time they get to the shallow caverns where the rival pack is hiding out, the fight has already started. Roars echo through the rock and rattle across his bones, interspersed with much more human-sounded shouts of pain and anger.

Werewolves, Stiles thinks. Even after all this time, there's something comforting about the familiarity of good old-fashioned werewolf mauling. Much more simple than the fights between dryads.

He peers around the corner, Allison guarding his back, an arrow already cocked while she starts to find a better perch. Things seem about evenly matched, the fighting broken off into little groups. He catches sight of his dad, a little bruised but otherwise looking fine, mouth set in a grim line while he holds up a gun and takes aim at the other 'wolves.

Chances are that they'll be fine. He's overreacting, worrying about them. They don't need his help. They probably won't even want his help, if he's honest. This kind of thing is more instinctual than most werewolves will admit, and it's a good chance for them to get out some of their more primal urges.

Still. His dad is here. His dad, badass but human, is here. And he's not willing to take that risk.

He steps forward, taking a deep breath while he draws on all that electrifying energy he's felt around him since the plane set down, and ends it with a crack of lightning that leaves them all deaf and blind for a moment.

When vision and sound finally creep back in, Stiles has already placed himself in the middle of the action, in the ruined area between the two packs. He calls on a slight perception charm, just a minor piece of magic to amplify the intimidation factor, and stares down the other pack's 'wolves.

"I don't know why you decided to come here, and I don't particularly care. You're going to leave. Now. Without further bloodshed or acts of retribution. And you're never coming back, because if you do, I'll be waiting. And this was just the first taste of my power."

There's dead silence for a moment, and then the other!Alpha snarls bitterly and turns to leave, his packmates falling in line behind him, leaving nothing but the smoking ground as proof of the battle.

*

Unsurprisingly, there are a few questions on the way back to the loft. Stiles clings to his dad for a vaguely embarrassing length of time (possibly all the way up to dropping him off at his front door, but Peter isn't there so it's not like anyone can blackmail him with that), doing his best to calm his breathing and not break down into hysterical sobs, and more or less ignores them until he's absolutely certain that no one is going to die. Then he eats a large pizza by himself and passes out for fourteen hours; lightning always drains his reserves quickly but it had been the best thing he could think of in the moment.

Only afterward, when he's awake and everything has started to settle and he doesn't feel like he needs to touch them all to make sure they're really alive, does he calm down enough to answer the questions. Scott must sense this, because less than a second after Stiles collapses on the couch, the last of the adrenaline leaking out of his limbs, his best friend plops down beside him.

"Dude," Scott says, his eyes still wide and oddly cautious. "Lightning."

"Lightning," Stiles agrees, too tired to do much else.

"So, did you learn magic in New York? Was it like Hogwarts? 'Cause, I mean, you've already got the robes."

And Stiles laughs. Then he takes a few shuddering breaths, wipes the tears out of his eyes, and laughs again for good measure.

"No," he finally manages, giving in to the world-famous McCall Puppy-Dog EyesTM, "It wasn't a New York thing. It's… a bit of a long story, honestly. But the short version is that this all started a long time ago--I just didn't get good until college."

Allison snorts at that, and now, with the tension of the last few hours draining away, the rest of the Pack notices.

"Ally?" Erica asks, curiosity sparking to life in her eyes.

"He was good before college, he just doesn't think so."

Stiles rolls his eyes. "I was not good, I just had an overabundance of magic. There's a difference. I had no fucking clue what I was doing with any of it."

"Sure, keep telling yourself that," she says skeptically.

"Just because I grew one tree--"

"What about the thing with the selkies?!"

"What sel--oh. I forgot about that. That was totally different!"

"Stiles!" Lydia snaps, and he blinks. "Shut up."

"Yes ma'am," he says, leaning back to let the couch fully envelop him.

"Allison," the banshee says sweetly, "is there something you'd like to share with the rest of us? For instance, why you seem to know how Stiles became a witch?"

"I'm not a witch," Stiles mutters under his breath.

Allison sighs, pulling her shoulders back and meeting Lydia's gaze evenly. "Yeah, I knew. I've known for a long time--since high school."

"And how did you stumble across this information?"

"Stiles needed some help dealing with a thing with the Nemeton, and I was the most convenient. I didn't think he was serious about having magic and all that, but once I found out he was actually powerful and pretty capable, I did my best to stick with him as backup whenever magical shenanigans were going down."

"It's true," Stiles pipes up, "She saved my ass, like, a million times."

"But… why didn't you come to me? To us? We're your Pack, Stiles, we would've helped you," Scott says, his face frozen somewhere between confused and hurt. Stiles hates that face. Usually, whoever caused it gets swift and brutal vengeance, except this time he can't really do that, because it's his own stupidity and hang-ups that caused it.

"I know, man. You would've had my back. It's just… it was right after the whole Gerard thing, and I needed to do it on my own. And then later, I kept meaning to mention it, but I could never find the right time or place, and things kept happening, and after a while it just… didn't seem to matter all that much. Things had stabilized enough that having an extra magic-user around wasn't going to have much of an impact either way, and no one was dying, and it was just easier to let it go."

"That's stupid!" Scott says indignantly. "What if doing a spell could've saved us a bunch of time or effort?"

"Then I would've done the spell! But nothing you guys had me researching these past few years required my assistance. Or, at least not the magical kind. So I figured it didn't matter, because you'd let me know if anything bigger was going down, because we're Pack."

Scott and Derek cringe in unison, which would be hilarious if Stiles didn't know it's because they didn't tell him his dad was kidnapped.

"What exactly do you mean when you say the Gerard thing?" Lydia asks. Her eyes are sharp in the golden afternoon light, and Stiles thanks all the deities once again for her being on their side. He's never stopped believing that if she so chose, she could take over the whole world in a night.

Of course, he could do with her being a little less perceptive right now.

"You guys remember the night all the shit was going down with Jackson, right?" Stiles says, carefully not making eye contact with Boyd and Erica.

"Obviously," Lydia responds, gesturing him to get on with it.

"Right, well, I kinda ended up with Gerard and some of his hunters for a little bit that night. Most Sparks activate their magic during times of high stress, and I guess it was the last straw for mine."

"Is that why you were there when we woke up?" Erica says, her eyes lighting up with understanding.

"Yeah," Stiles says, shifting slightly and tucking his hands under his legs to keep them still.

Derek's face is slowly getting more and more crinkled up, worry making his lips into a thin line. "What was high stress?"

Stiles gives him a Look. "Gee, I don't know, what could Gerard Argent have said or done that could cause stress, he's just a fun and loving guy--"

"He grabbed Stiles from the lacrosse game," Allison interrupts. "He took Stiles into the basement and hurt him and the Spark kicked in to heal him and then Stiles went to magic tutoring and now he's a witch."

Stiles glances over at her and gives her a flat look. She directs an equally-unimpressed face back at him.

"What?" she mutters. "You were taking too long."

"And yet, still not a witch," he replies. He's living in a Monty Python sketch, honestly.

Scott's Kicked Puppy Face is back in full swing. "I don't understand, why didn't you come to us? We would've protected you."

Stiles sighs, runs a hand over his face. He's too tired to deal with this. "Do you remember how busy we all were that night? How chaotic it got? There was no one to come get me, so I got myself out. And Erica and Boyd were there, so I got them out too. I know you didn't mean to be, but you were busy. I found out I had magic so I learned to use it. It's not that complicated, there's no big nefarious story."

Derek lets out a noise that Stiles is 90% sure has never been heard from any werewolf, ever, something between a grunt and whimper. His eyebrows pull together and he gets up suddenly, turns on his heel to leave the room.

Boyd and Isaac grimace as one, but it's Erica that gets up and hurries after him.

Stiles glances at Scott, his eyebrows resting high on his face. "What's that about?" He doesn't bother to try and hide the concern in his voice; werewolf senses will just sense it anyways.

Scott does his little half-shrug, not bothering to uncross his arms. "Derek still gets twitchy about the whole Gerard thing. It's alright, Erica's got this. He'll be fine, he just needs a few minutes."

Stiles thinks about pushing--the pack bond is pinging like crazy, like an alarm telling him that nothing is alright,  _ his alpha is hurt _ \--but he takes a breath and lets it go. He certainly wouldn't want everyone chasing after him every time that he was having a minor meltdown, and he hadn't been here, living in Beacon Hills. He wouldn't know what to do even if he did go after Derek.

"Are we done here?" he says instead. "Because I'd really like to go check on my dad."

"Go," Lydia says, speaking up before any of the others get the chance. Her eyes are narrowed, her head tilted, and Stiles gets the uncomfortable feeling that he's her latest puzzle. Still, an excuse is an excuse, and Lydia is practically Derek's second Second, almost on par with Scott, so he takes advantage while he can and retreats to the Jeep still parked outside.

(In the back of his mind, he wonders why Peter isn't even crazier than he is if every dramatically revealed secret/lie/lie by omission leads to a conversation that stilted and awkward.)

*

Things post-magic-reveal… shift. That's kind of a pun that Stiles is inordinately proud of, but it's also kind of the only way he knows to describe it. He hadn't been  _ hiding _ the magic before, but he also hadn't been at home, using it in front of his pack and answering their never-ending stream of questions and feeling a little too much like a teacher chaperon escorting a class of werewolves to view a mystical tree (slash-child?).

Stiles wonders, sometimes, what of that is  _ hey guys I haven't been telling you about huge parts of my life for the last five years because I wanted some semblance of normalcy in my wacky, Fae-filled life _ and what of that is just coming home from college for the first time in a while. It's hard to tell whether awkward pauses during board game night stem from a missing joke because he was on the other side of the country or from all the pieces of him they've never seen in person. 

(Scott's face during Never Have I Ever at pack night? Priceless. Completely worth Erica's  _ extremely  _ invasive question about his sex life.)

But even with the awkward pauses and the stilted nature of relearning how to be with family... it's better, somehow. Like some weight that Stiles was carrying is gone. He wasn't hiding any of it, but--that doesn't mean he wasn't afraid of what they would think of the choices he made in New York. So when no judgement comes, Stiles lets out a little breath of relief he didn't even know he was holding. 

(Derek notices, his eyes crinkling at the corners with amusement. It's a good look for him. "Did you seriously think  _ I _ was going to give  _ you _ shit over killing some red caps? You must've blocked out more of high school than I thought.")

("Yeah, yeah, Sourwolf," Stiles grumbles, "laugh it up at the magic guy.")

School is still going, and he still has business with a handful of covens and one cranky of jinn, so he has to go back after a few blissful weeks of break. But when summer rolls around, he hops back in the Jeep to make the drive over and spends every second he's not acting as a fixer for the supernatural world lounging around in blissful laziness with the rest of the pack. And hey, bonus--when he's doing business near Beacon Hills, he has his very own growling protection squad willing to tag along and back him up. 

They go swimming, just like old times, and Stiles isn't the only ones with new scars, new tattoos. He was growing-learning-becoming in New York without them, but life didn't stop here, either. Erica shows him a dragonfly inked onto her bicep and talks about a night of drinking he missed that ended in a Denny's parking lot just north of the border, with a small pack of were-coyotes, gourmet garlic olive oil, and seventeen broken knitting needles. Scott shows him new details on his, a series of Celtic knots stretching between the two bands he got in high school, and talks about a little girl he couldn't save. 

The others eye Stiles' own tattoos, curiosity prickling in their gazes, but it's Erica who actually asks. 

"Dude," she says, treading water next to him, "who's your artist? I love their style."

He follows her gaze and bites back a smirk, willing the runes to shift and ripple across his skin. Sure enough, she lets out a little gasp of delight, reaching out to feel them twist and spin like dandelion seeds. "Okay, now you  _ have  _ to tell me _. _ "

Stiles thinks of all the things he hasn't told his pack, and of all the things he has. He thinks of what it means to be pack even when you live three thousand miles apart, even when you don't share everything. He thinks, not for the first time, that he might want to try living here again, after he graduates--that as much as he has learned and grown on his own, he misses living in the chaos of the pack. 

There are some things he's been keeping to himself that he'd maybe like to share. Some stories of theirs that he'd like to hear, finally. 

"Those are from this one lady in Rome--you would've loved her, Isaac, she had this ridiculous collection of scarves..."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaaand that's a wrap, everyone!
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading, commenting, and making my heart glow with all your nice words. I love you all and please take care of yourselves <3

**Author's Note:**

> I totally want to write an alpha!Stiles story, but sadly, we're headed towards a whole and healthy (& Hale, lol) pack dynamic for the future. Next week, check back in for the beginnings of Spark!Stiles and lots of magicy goodness. <3


End file.
